Wise deliberation sustains cooperation

From www.eurekalert.com

University of Waterloo

Giving people time to think about cooperating on a task can have a positive effect if they are big-picture thinkers, but if they tend to focus on their own, immediate experience, the time to think may make them less cooperative, University of Waterloo research has found.

A series of three experiments, conducted by University of Waterloo researchers Igor Grossmann, Justin Brienza and Romana Bobocel, also found that wise, or big-picture, thinkers were able to sustain their cooperation with others when given time to deliberate.

"What this study tells us is that the effect of thinking time on cooperation depends on the type of deliberation people use," says Igor Grossmann, an assistant professor of psychology at the University of Waterloo and the study's lead author." In practical terms, people trying to get groups to cooperate, such as employers or in school settings, may really need to understand people's deliberation styles before deciding how much time to give them for a given task."